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Racial Inequality in the Criminal Justice System.

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I keep hearing this notion asserted by the media, commentators, and black persons. However, it is used very vaguely with few specifics.

 

Can someone clarify what they mean by "racial inequality in the criminal justice system." I assume they mean a system that is unfair to blacks and minorities.

 

Do you agree with them that there is racial inequality in the criminal justice system? In which ways? Can you provide me with specific examples/reasons for this inequality (i.e. explicit laws, applications of the law, etc.)? How would you change the law to make it more fair?

 

By the way, I don't think the fact that because 58% of prison population are minorities, which is disproportionate to the population, is a valid argument that the system is against them. I want specifics.

Edited by thenelli01
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I do not think that racial inequality is a systemic or structural problem in the American judicial system.

 

Ostensibly, laws in the US have no racial bias. That is, there is no racicism written into the legal code. That battle has been won. There is probably some racism at the margin amongst individual judges and juries, but I think this is largely a reaction to the problems in black culture and communities rather than some ingrained hatred of blacks in America. The common arguments I've heard used to claim the existence of racial inequality are:

 

1. There are far more minorities (especially blacks) in prisons.

2. Crimes which are perpetrated by minorites (again, usually blacks) are more heavily targetted by police.

3. Racial profiling is still used regularly, sometimes explicitly.

 

All of these arguments are true, accept that they identify symptoms of greater problems within the minority population rather than actual racisim. There are more minorities in prison largely due to the drug war and welfarism, which are certainly terrible government programs, but minority cultrues should still be condemned for their acceptance of them. "Minority crimes" are targetted more than white crimes because they are more abundant, and also probably easier to catch. An example I have heard is that the police and courts are far harder on crack users than powder cocaine users. Finally. racial profiling is a perfectly acceptable tactic, and not fundamentally different from using any characteristic to identify suspects and criminals.

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Of course there is racial injustice and oppression in the judicial system and written into the law codes, as Ron Paul points out, the horrible drug laws have a disproportionate effect on the poor, underprivileged and minorities, and the minorities are a majority of the prison population is a fact supporting that argument. Of course gun control also has a history of targeting racial minorities.

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Of course there is racial injustice and oppression in the judicial system and written into the law codes, as Ron Paul points out, the horrible drug laws have a disproportionate effect on the poor, underprivileged and minorities, and the minorities are a majority of the prison population is a fact supporting that argument. Of course gun control also has a history of targeting racial minorities.

Nonsense. Those laws target everyone who breaks them equally. Edited by Nicky
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   It really doesn't help that guys like Jesse Jackson and Sharpton are scoundrels who have no interest in protecting the rights of their constituents, yet they are chosen by our media to represent minorities in these issues. I head Jackson today and he was advocating the idea that the Zimmerman trial was done incorrectly because there were no blacks on the jury.  I am inferring that he would prefer that juries be constructed along racial classification. Absurd.  

 

   I hope that minorities who feel cheated by our system notice that we do have minority leadership in this country, some of those leaders are very powerful. They need to notice that the problems are rooted in legislation that allows for prejudicial enforcement and policies that destroy communities.  What all oppressed people need to understand that movements that don't treat them as individuals but as a collective will never give them liberty or prosperity. 

 

   Racism still exists in this country, but I don't think its a "social problem" anymore. 

 

   The problem is that the culture of illiegality and welfarism has created a dysfunctional minority subculture that produces more. Walter Block is a libertarian thinker who has looked a lot into how welfare and the drug war have harmed blacks. Its really insidious once you realize what the government is doing to these people. 

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... ... I want specifics.

 

I think you'll find some research papers into the topic. Like this one. That might be the place to start. (If you can stomach it, there's the "Equal Justice Initiative".)

Edited by softwareNerd
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The problem is that the culture of illiegality and welfarism has created a dysfunctional minority subculture that produces more. Walter Block is a libertarian thinker who has looked a lot into how welfare and the drug war have harmed blacks. Its really insidious once you realize what the government is doing to these people.

I think saying that government policies "harm blacks" is a failure to capture the essential attributes so called "victims" of those policies have. Those attributes don't include skin color.

Those essentials attributes can only be established by relying on both logic and observation of facts. Not on observation of facts alone.

Yes, observation of facts would lead one to notice the disproportionate number of blacks drop out of school, go on welfare or commit crimes. But, from that, to conclude that blacks are therefor targeted, is irrational. If you identify the essential attributes young people dropping out of school and going on welfare or doing drugs have, they have to do either with neglectful family upbringing, a community that provides negative peer pressure, or a culture that promotes irrationality.

The reason why a larger proportion of black people fall "victims" to those policies is because a larger proportion of them have those essential attributes. And I'm putting "victims" in quotation marks, because, in a society where a majority of people are still able to become productive, self fulfilled, accomplished professionals and family men/women, failure to do so cannot be mainly attributed to government policy.

You should blame the people who create those conditions in black communities, first. General government policies like drug laws and welfare pale in comparison, as a factor. I suppose the same is not quite true for the education system, which is a tool being used to create those conditions. But still nowhere near the main tool.

Look at it another way: Japan (and to a lesser extent a lot of Asia and Europe) have the same level of prosperity, education, welfare and drug policies the US has. And yet, they don't have a serious crime problem. Japan has a suicide problem, but very low crime rates. So how can you primarily blame that set of policies for black kids falling into crime? How can you say that a set of policies that DOES NOT cause Japanese kids to form gangs, riot and commit crimes IS targeting and victimizing American blacks into doing just that?

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Ostensibly, laws in the US have no racial bias. That is, there is no racicism written into the legal code.

 

Actually, the existence of specially protected classes in the civil rights acts means that members of those specially protected classes have the right to sue when those not in those classes do not have the right to sue for the same offense. These acts make a mockery of "Equal Justice Under the Law". Their good intentions do not excuse the evil they bring about.

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Nonsense. Those laws target everyone who breaks them equally.

The research on the history of gun control shows that those laws were, in fact, targeted and supported by mainly southern white Democrats and later Republicans who aimed at keeping minority groups, especially blacks, disarmed. Cf. for example, Winkler "The Secret History of Guns."

Yes, observation of facts would lead one to notice the disproportionate number of blacks drop out of school, go on welfare or commit crimes. But, from that, to conclude that blacks are therefor targeted, is irrational.

Who's arguing that?

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Finally. racial profiling is a perfectly acceptable tactic, and not fundamentally different from using any characteristic to identify suspects and criminals.

 

Can you explain this in more detail, please? I tried to find a topic on racial profiling, but couldn't find anything.

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Can you explain this in more detail, please? I tried to find a topic on racial profiling, but couldn't find anything.

 

Racial profiling is a variant on standard profiling. Profiling (by my understanding) refers to using past data sets to established expected patern outcomes in future data sets. It is perfectly logical and understandable to use this method in targetting criminals. There always tends to be more crime in poor neighborhoods, therefore police should put more patrols in poor neighborhoods. A random black individual is far more likely to commit a crime than the average white individual in the United States, so it makes sense in certain situations to cast suspicion on black individuals. Of course there is a lot more context involved when making an individual evaluation of a suspected criminal. If Trayvon Martin had been wearing a business suit and holding a copy of the Wall Street Journal, I doubt Zimmerman would have been suspicious.

 

To deny the validity of profiling, racial or otherwise, is simply absurd. It is to declare that the police should be blind, deaf, and dumb, and never use a shread of reasoning in their attempts to find criminals. If we know common characteristics associated with criminality, then the police should utilize this knowlege. I doubt even the most hardcore progressive would suggest that policing forces should be spread out evenly amonst every individual in America regardless of individual characteristics. Race happens to be a relevent profiling characteristic, just as age, profession, income level, and other statistics are.

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I think saying that government policies "harm blacks" is a failure to capture the essential attributes so called "victims" of those policies have. Those attributes don't include skin color.

Those essentials attributes can only be established by relying on both logic and observation of facts. Not on observation of facts alone.

Yes, observation of facts would lead one to notice the disproportionate number of blacks drop out of school, go on welfare or commit crimes. But, from that, to conclude that blacks are therefor targeted, is irrational. If you identify the essential attributes young people dropping out of school and going on welfare or doing drugs have, they have to do either with neglectful family upbringing, a community that provides negative peer pressure, or a culture that promotes irrationality.

 

 

   Well first of all the term "black" doesn't just refer to a skin color. It refers to a variety of people who are descended from  African slaves in the united states. . I am not referring to people with a dark brown hue. 

 

  I mentioned the negative culture in my first paragraph. Iopulist leaders view their people as pawns to be thrown away for the cause of a collective, they don't care about the rights or prosperity of their community. 

 

  The reason why I say that they are victims is that blacks have terrible leadership that beyond the norm. At least with mainstream leadership you have secular progressives and right-wing Christians.  However many of the "Black Leaders" that are invited to talk about issues by the mainstream media operate on the premises of Marxism, Nationalism, and Christianity. The leaders who operate on these premises are guilty of using their time and resources to lead people further down into dependence, racism, and religion. This is all done to create not a group of individuals, but a needy collective that can be accessed as a voting block by politicians. This is very convenient for the democratic party. 

 

  The policies that are implemented by that very party then turn to reinforce with violence the negative aspects of that group.  It seems populist programs are catered specifically towards blacks, by black populist groups, and the democratic party as a whole. The government comes in at the point where political favoritism and coalition building lead to an even more disadvantageous situation for those who are under the sway of that leadership. 

 

  The evils of "Black Leaders" need to be pointed out.  

 

   EDIT: 

 

   So basically I am arguing that culture is top down, and that means politics can have just as much an effect on culture than the other way around. To support this argument I would offer the following CATO discussion on public opinion in foreign policy. In the linked panel they talk about how majorities are socially constructed by establishment leaders and elites to shape public opinion. 

 

    http://www.cato.org/events/public-opinion-us-foreign-policy-what-it-how-does-it-matter

Edited by Hairnet
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Racial profiling is a variant on standard profiling. Profiling (by my understanding) refers to using past data sets to established expected patern outcomes in future data sets. It is perfectly logical and understandable to use this method in targetting criminals. There always tends to be more crime in poor neighborhoods, therefore police should put more patrols in poor neighborhoods. A random black individual is far more likely to commit a crime than the average white individual in the United States, so it makes sense in certain situations to cast suspicion on black individuals. Of course there is a lot more context involved when making an individual evaluation of a suspected criminal. If Trayvon Martin had been wearing a business suit and holding a copy of the Wall Street Journal, I doubt Zimmerman would have been suspicious.

 

To deny the validity of profiling, racial or otherwise, is simply absurd. It is to declare that the police should be blind, deaf, and dumb, and never use a shread of reasoning in their attempts to find criminals. If we know common characteristics associated with criminality, then the police should utilize this knowlege. I doubt even the most hardcore progressive would suggest that policing forces should be spread out evenly amonst every individual in America regardless of individual characteristics. Race happens to be a relevent profiling characteristic, just as age, profession, income level, and other statistics are.

 

So, racial profiling is recognizing that blacks are more likely to be associated with poor neighborhoods or being uneducated or a certain culture, which are characteristics associated with criminality. Would you agree with that?

Edited by thenelli01
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The research on the history of gun control shows that those laws were, in fact, targeted and supported by mainly southern white Democrats and later Republicans who aimed at keeping minority groups, especially blacks, disarmed. Cf. for example, Winkler "The Secret History of Guns."

You really thought switching tenses would just go unnoticed, and I would now just accept that you backed up your previous claim with facts? As a reminder, that claim was that currently, there is racial injustice and oppression in the legal system. Those are your exact words.

Edited by Nicky
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You really thought switching tenses would just go unnoticed, and I would now just accept that you backed up your previous claim with facts? As a reminder, that claim was that currently, there is racial injustice and oppression in the legal system. Those are your exact words.

Yeah, there's no switcheroo, that's right. But your disagreement stated "Nonsense. Those laws target everyone who breaks them equally." and the only time I said anything about laws targeting or even used the word "target" was about the history of gun control laws when I said "Of course gun control also has a history of targeting racial minorities." which I think is borne out by the historical record. So... yeah?

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Yes, I agree.

 

And would you agree that it isn't fair or rational to profile all individuals of a certain race? i.e. context needs to be considered. For example, it wouldn't be proper to racially profile someone that is black who is shopping in a department store as someone who may be a thief simply because he is black. You should also consider what he is wearing, his speech, his attitude, his manner, his actions, etc.

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And would you agree that it isn't fair or rational to profile all individuals of a certain race? i.e. context needs to be considered. For example, it wouldn't be proper to racially profile someone that is black who is shopping in a department store as someone who may be a thief simply because he is black. You should also consider what he is wearing, his speech, his attitude, his manner, his actions, etc.

 

Of course. To profile with any accuracy requires that you take into account many relevent facts in a situation. You shouldn't assume every individual wielding a knife is a threat, especially if it is your own mother holding it in a kitchen. When police engage in racial profiling, they don't actually just use race as the profiling characteristic, but also usually location, economic, and social characteristics. Typically opponents of racial profiling ignore this factor.

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